1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a surgical instrument for seating an intraocular lens in a posterior chamber of an eye in place of a cataracted natural lens removed during a cataract operation. In particular, the present invention relates to a surgical snare for seating an intraocular lens in a posterior capsule that remains after extracapsular removal of a cataracted natural lens.
2. Description of the Pertinent Art
A surgical snare for cutting a cataracted lens of a human eye is disclosed in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,538,611. The surgical snare cutter disclosed therein comprises a loop which is adapted to snare the natural lens of an eye, crosswise of such lens, i.e., along a diameter thereof, and to cut the same upon movement of the loop member, which is displaceable within the bore of the shank of the instrument, to its retracted condition.
A surgical instrument for seating an intraocular lens in a posterior chamber of an eye is disclosed in my U.S. Patent No. 4,530,117. Generally, an intraocular lens used to replace a cataracted natural lens includes a lens and a pair of opposed position fixation members called haptics for retaining the intraocular lens in the posterior chamber. U.S. Pat. No. 4,530,117 disclosed an instrument for seating an intraocular lens of the type described, in the posterior chamber. The instrument has a longitudinal shank portion and a hooked end portion. The hooked end portion has a tip portion adapted to engage the upper haptic of the lens for displacing the upper haptic toward the lower haptic during the insertion of the lens through the pupil of the eye. After the lower haptic of the lens is seated in the lower portion of the posterior capsule, the instrument is operated to move the upper haptic through the pupil into the posterior capsule and let the upper haptic expand to its undeformed condition in the posterior capsule. While the above-described hooked instrument substantially simplified the lens seating procedure, it, nevertheless, continued to be a difficult procedure to properly seat both haptics in the capsular bag.